He goes on to the next arrow and polishes it. He is tired. But he cannot put an end to it. On pay-day he will turn up at the window and collect his good wages. How am I to get along without them? What would happen to Frank and Freda?

He goes on polishing and polishing. Now and again he hears sounds that startle him. Sounds from someone who has been caught. He never seems to see them, only hears cries. But it isn’t any worse than they want it to be, he thinks. Why should anyone do such things when he doesn’t have to? Nobody else gets into trouble. If only they’d hold their tongues things would be much better round here, he tells himself, listening for this muffled cry from somewhere.

I wonder who that was? Was it Stig? It was a woman’s voice, but then those who cry are the ones left behind. No, it mustn’t be Stig. But one day it will be. That’s how they end up, one after the other.

He clambers up his little ladder again and goes on polishing. Then he hears a dragging sound and turns to press himself against the wall. It is the van that slithers up and down; that nobody wants to meet; that nobody has seen the like of before.

He polishes the flying arrow energetically, his face to the wall. The arrow turns into a blazing flame in front of his eyes when he stares at it intently like this. Meanwhile the van passes him. When it is immediately behind him, and any eyes that are there may observe him from it, he polishes as if his life depended on it.

Now they’re looking at me. They’re not going to find anything to complain about either.

They must see I’m doing my best, he thinks. If I’m getting good wages I’ll do a thorough job of work too. All my life I’ve lived up to my reputation as an honest worker who earns his wage-packet.

He feels eyes in the small of his back as the van slithers past. He can see nobody, and yet….

They see everything, he thinks, somewhat anxiously.

Who is lying inside the van now? It mustn’t be Stig. I want to be friends with Stig one day.

The arrow polisher sometimes polishes the rows of arrows right down towards the centre, and has seen it gape open when the van arrived with some doomed soul hidden inside. There is one here now. It mustn’t be Stig. Stig is part of his dream.

The van has turned the corner and he no longer polishes quite so hard. He can take out his dream and tend it. Then his movements slow down.

He looks about him.

Empty. Nobody walks in this gleaming light who does not have to, and nobody comes along to greet him.

But it must change.

And, yes! There comes someone out of a side passage to cross the arrow corridor close beside him. The arrow polisher knows who this young man is; he knew him from before. Unflagging hope raises its head again. But no. The man passes by as if there were nobody there, looking straight in front of him, and disappearing as quick as he can into the side passage opposite.